Opening Up to Happiness

Today, night and day—light and dark—are balanced. Tomorrow, we begin the gentle exhale into the dark half of the year—my two favorite seasons. It seems a perfect time to start along a new path, to cultivate a new focus.

As the wheel of the year turns, I am going to do my very best to focus on being happy—on opening myself up to happiness. Starting right now, this moment. And I plan to use my blog to track my progress.

Once a week, I will sit down and write a post about one thing, one thought, one event, one person, one flower—one anything—so long as it brings forth happiness in me.

And I’m going to start right now, by thinking about…darkness. Yup, the thought of darkness is bringing me happiness.

Years ago, I did a meditation where I sat in a silent room that was lit only by a candle. I blew out the candle, and waited for my mind to settle into the complete lack of sensory input. I thought I would be afraid—we all hear of fear of the dark. I was surprised to find myself excited instead.

Without images or sounds flowing into my brain for processing, my imagination became even more powerful. I opened myself to the ideas that floated around me, let them play out as they would without judgment or any attempts to guide them a certain way. Later, this would develop into a crucial skill for my writing.

The darkness holds Dream. Endless possibility. I found there was a texture to darkness. An energy in the space devoid of light.

Rilke said it best in this poem (my favorite of his works):

I, too, “have faith in nights”—in restfulness, in Dream. In the darkness that gently folds itself around the seeds of our ideas, protecting them until they’re ready to see the light.